Reply to s/o Sending your child to a small liberal arts college for $50k a year is a rip-off

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "s/o Sending your child to a small liberal arts college for $50k a year is a rip-off"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Speaking as a college administrator, it seems that several posters are misinformed about financial aid, especially at the most prestigious liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams, Wellesley, Pomona, etc.). These schools have tremendous endowments that enable students who qualify for financial aid (using fairly standard financial aid formulas via FAFSA) to attend with minimal, and sometimes, no loans. In other words, if your children are able to get into these highly competitive schools and you qualify for financial aid, you may actually spend less money than sending your child to a state school under severe budget restrictions. It really pains me to see excellent students from poor families who don't even bother to apply to these schools because their parents believe that the price tag is too high. That is simply not the case.[/quote]

I wish we could get a median income for the DCUM board, but I'm confident to say most people on this board won't qualify for any financial aid. My parents made $60,000 per year and I paid $40,000 of $50,000 in tuition. Makes no sense. I'm not sure who they were offering aid to, but it didn't seem to be many people.[/quote]

Hard to speculate based upon the info you gave. First, are you talking about the very highest tier liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Swarthmore, Williams)? Most schools do not have nearly the same endowment as those top, elite schools, so they are not going to be as generous with financial aid. Also, $60K in income today should allow you to qualify for a lot of aid, but there are many other factors to consider. (BTW $60K HHI in 1990 needs to be dollar adjusted for 2012.) For example, did your parents their home outright, have other sources of income, etc.? [/quote]

I went to a school with a much larger endowment than the liberal arts colleges you mentioned. I think its top 5. I didn't go to school that long ago, but I'm the PP that was in school before the congressional investigation so things have definitely changed at my university and others. They claim now that anyone making less than $75,000 per year gets full-ride paid. I don't know if I believe it, but that's what they say.

Even if this board is representative of all incomes in DC the median income is $100,000 which is far above what my parents made and the current full tuition promises. That being said I get the feeling the average income of people here is higher than $100K per year.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics